


Determination

by JU_Zumester



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: All aboard the Feels train, Character Study, Cryaotic's Undertale Gameplay, One Shot, Other, Pacifist Route, Post-Canon Fix-It, Selectively Mute Frisk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5334857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JU_Zumester/pseuds/JU_Zumester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He didn't want to be saved. I guess it's a good thing, then, that I've never fancied his plans for the future."</p><p>AKA Flowey angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Determination

**Author's Note:**

> Keep in mind that this fanfiction includes references to multiple playthroughs, including the true pacifist run, and a neutral run. If you have not played these runs and want to avoid spoilers, I strongly suggest that you do not proceed.
> 
> Side note: I'm taking inspiration from both my own Undertale gameplays and Cryaotic's gameplay (which can be found on youtube for everyone who's interested).
> 
> Side note to the side note: Selective mutism is a disorder in which individuals (as the name suggests) find themselves unable to speak at select times. These times are often brought on by triggers that induce fear or anxiety. The reflex to remain mute is most likely a subconscious method of self defense. A person who deals with selective mutism will remain silent in the same way that a shy person will withdraw from people. Because I see this as a realistic headcanon, I have written Frisk as selectively mute in this work.
> 
> Optional Soundtrack:  
> 1\. [ Underneath by Adam Lambert ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iva5OqfA1cc)  
> 2\. [ Beautiful Ending by BarlowGirl ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghgpz0IWV0E)

* * *

 

**Soundtrack: [Track 1]**

 

“Frisk,” he speaks into the cool darkness, chilling your bones in a way that words shouldn’t. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

His lower lip trembles. He bites into it with a budding fang, threatening to draw blood. His eyes are full of the pain that only a time-worn soul can know. His youthful form stands in direct contradiction to such old eyes.

Meeting them, you are filled with determination.

Your mouth, hardwired shut until that moment, opens and a single word tumbles out. Filling up the silence. Overflowing with implication.

“No.”

His eyebrows knit together. “Yes, you do,” he says, and in the half-light, his hands find yours. “You have a home to go back to. A family to find. The barrier has finally been broken. There’s an entire world up there, waiting for you to return to it. You have a thousand better things to do than hang around here, waiting for me to...to…”

You’re not sure what guides your words, but once they’re out there, you’re glad to have said them. Glad to have answered Asriel’s most burning question. “When I fell down this hole, I didn’t know what I expected. If anything, I expected the end. I--” Your vocal chords tighten, strangling what might have been your next word. Asriel’s hands tighten around yours. “I wanted the end. I wanted to die. But finding the underground, and meeting so many kind people, and so many friends...I found something that I’d never had before. A reason to live. Opening the  barrier, freeing the monsters, emptying the underground. That became my reason. My reason isn’t up there with humanity. As long as monsters remain trapped by the underground, my reason is down here. In the darkness.”  
  
  
“But you already opened the barrier--”  
  
  
“Not all prisons have walls,” you whisper. “The barrier isn’t what’s trapping you here. Every other monster who wants to leave is leaving, or has left already. You alone remain. Trapped. I can’t say goodbye to this place without you, Asriel. Don’t you understand? I truly have nothing better to do than to see you set free.”  
  
  
Tears well up in the fur at the corners of his eyes. Run down the sides of his face in uneven rivulets. “What’s trapping me here isn’t something that you can solve with a few kind words, Frisk.”

Again, your throat threatens to close, and words become hard. “I. Know.”

“If I leave this place, I’ll only be putting you all in danger. Flowey will… I can’t stand to see my parents learn the truth about what I’ve become…” His chest heaves. He struggles to inhale air that suddenly seems hot and crowded.

And before you know what’s happening, he’s weeping, and you’re the only thing that’s holding him on his feet. And then you’re both sinking to the ground. Landing in a bed of golden flowers. And you’re pressing your lips to his forehead, and holding him close to you, your hearts beating against each other’s ribs.

And you’re whispering soothing things to him. Losing track of all of the words that you say, and all the denials that he manages in between tearful sobs.

A kiss on the cheek. On the nose. On closed eyelids. On the ear. On the jaw. On the neck. One on each hand. A few more on the nose for good measure.

And you almost think that he’s given up. That he has no more fight left in him, after years of grief and hate and confusion and turmoil.

Before his whole body stiffens, and like a rabid animal, he is suddenly pulling away from you, struggling to escape your grasp, reach the opposite end of the cavern, or find the exit, or scare you off to somewhere from which you’ll never return. Anything to get away. And there’s real, unadulterated fear in his eyes. And it’s almost contagious.

He turns his back on you. Takes a plodding step forward into the densest part of the flowerbed. His foot comes to an unflinching halt, and you see the tips of vines curling their way around his ankle. Into his pant leg. Breaking the cloth. Breaking the skin.

Roots and vines rise out of the earth and overtake his other leg. You rush to your feet, trying to pull them off. Suddenly remember that you have a knife in your pocket that would be well suited to this kind of work. Desperately cut at stray plant life that’s doing its best to force Asriel to the ground.

“Stop it!” he screams. “Leave here, now! Before it’s too late!”

He breathes raggedly and his warnings dissolve into pained cries. Bloodcurdling. Maybe bloodthirsty.

He’s on his knees now. Salty tears fall from his chin. Vines curl around his arms and legs. Dig at his torso. His form begins to fade. Deform. Shrink. He convulses. Shudders. Gives another shriek, terrified and malicious at the same time.

“ASRIEL!” You throw your arms around him, as though your arms can shield him from the world and its evils. Squint your eyes shut, not wanting to see the sight unfolding inches in front of you.

A voice from out of the darkness, over the sound of wriggling vines and heavy breathing: “Even if this doesn’t mean much...even if we truly don’t know one another that well...even if I’ve hurt you in more ways than either of us can imagine...even if I might be the end of you, the end of everything...I want you to know...that I care. That I’m sorry. That this wasn’t just a game. That this wasn’t just about mindless destruction. I don’t want to live in a kill-or-be-killed world, damn it! I want to live in a loving world! And I know that it’s cruel of me to turn around, after all this time, and tell you that I l-l-l...lo...l…...lo...l-l…”

A small cry, cut off by wet choking.

A continually shrinking form in your grasp. No longer shifting and warm, but slender and cold. Held down by a network of roots and vines. Spiny leaves brushing against sensitive skin.

It seems to take many lifetimes for you to open your eyes.

Swapping gazes with him now, the feeling inside of you pales in comparison to the one that filled you minutes ago. You remember his words. “Don’t think of it as me."

You don’t.

 

“Flowey.”

You are reminded of a past life. A past Underground. A world in which Flowey had threatened to take it all from you, one too many times. A world in which you had readily taken his life in return, and left him a common flower. Faceless. An unraveling memory, for your heart and mind alone.  
  
It could be easy. It could be that easy.  
  
  
Killing him. Ending it all. For sure.  
  
After all, isn't death the ultimate escape? Wouldn't ending him be as good as freeing him? Isn't that what he wants?

  
_I knew you had it in you_ , he had said.  
  
  
But do you still have it in you?  
  
  
"I don't know if I could do it all again," he says. And you decide that you agree with him.

* * *

 

**Soundtrack: [Track 2]**

 

She’s there, waiting for you at the exit to the underground, tunnel walls thick with the remains of soul magic. You told them to go on without you (that you only wanted to take a few minutes to say goodbye to someone), and most of them did, not realizing that you might never follow them to the surface. But Toriel waited.

Always the patient, loving, kindhearted mother.

And your heart is heavy with the knowledge that these hands of yours--in another time, another place--have spilled her blood. And that she’ll never know it.

“I just couldn’t leave without you. It didn’t feel right to step out into the light, knowing that the person who gave it to us was still underground. Waiting.”  
  
  
You think about Asriel and nod in perfect agreement.

Somewhere inside, Asriel thinks about you, too.

“Step out into the light, little one. I can hardly see your face,” she says, folding her claws in front of her. Fidgeting. As though under the impression that this is all too good to be true--that a demon will step out of the shadows and take it all away.

Maybe she’s right.

“Toriel,” you say timidly. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

You’re holding a ceramic pot filled with nondescript soil. Dark vines weave in and out of it. In the center of the knot stands a winding stalk and a golden blossom. Faceless and unmoving. A regular, old flower.

Toriel looks confused. Of course, she would be.

“He didn’t want to be saved,” you say. “I guess it’s a good thing, then, that I’ve never fancied his plans for the future.”

Indirect light filters through the tunnel from the surface. Ghosts over your skin.

“I tore his vines from the soil. Cut them short. Pulled him into the air before he had the chance to escape into the ground. He was too weak to do anything about it. It was a...long fight. And at the end of it? Potted, just like any other flower.”  
  
  
She reaches out half-heartedly with limp claws.

“I thought that he had lost his soul a long time ago in that flowerbed. That it, like the rest of his physical body, had turned to dust. Gone forever. But I was wrong. He fought me with the kind of power that only a soul could have provided. Ironic, then. Ironic that it was his lacking of a soul that turned him into the villain that he was, and that it was his soul, in the end, that gave him the strength to enact his villainous scheme. You see, Toriel, he _didn’t_ have a soul. But it was the remains of his soul that chained his thoughts and memories to this wilting flower. Turned him into something else. The disheartened echoes of that soul that gave rise to every one of his unimaginable powers, and the twisted desires that brought them to fruition."  
  
Your words are unfaltering. Maybe it's his strength that has given you the gift of unbroken speech.

Toriel's hands wrap around the pot, feeling what’s left of its warmth.

“When I tore him from the dirt, all I did was break the chains. Released the bond. Killed him, once and for all. I killed him, Toriel.”

She meets your gaze, catches a glimpse of inhuman pupils.

“His soul lingered for several fleeting moments, purified by the violence with which all of that evil was put to rest. And I absorbed it. Absorbed him.”

There are no tears. No tears left.

“And this flower? It’s just the remains of dozens of lifetimes worth of pain and suffering. He didn’t want you to see him like that. And now, even though you’ll never again see him as he truly is, you can at least have the chance to glimpse the echoes of his soul, played off the soundboard of mine. For as long as I live. From the ashes of painful immortality, he has the chance to live a mortal life, however fleeting."

  
She takes the pot from out of your hands and cradles it in her arms.

You don’t know why or how she seems to understand, but you don’t care.

“His name was Flowey,” you say, before she has the chance to call him Asriel. “And now, we’ve both moved on. Become something different. As one. We're ready to live."

* * *

 

You sit in the middle of a grassy clearing, surrounded by what humans call “orange trees”. Ironically, the trees themselves are not orange, but human legend tells that when the right time of year rolls around, the tree produces round, orange fruits that taste delicious. Asriel can't wait to try one.

You sit cross legged, with a familiar vine-filled pot resting in your lap. Keeping it with you doesn’t really solve any problems, but it makes a part of you happy. It calms the raging waters that compose Asriel’s soul.

He hangs there, suspended in the darkness of your psyche, watching the monsters around you smile at a single person who has become not one, but two. They smile at Frisk, but they also smile at Asriel, and their scrutiny burns him as much as he craves it.

_Go on. Speak_ , you think, probing your subconscious for traces of him. Dredging him up into the light. _They’re all waiting to meet you._

_They know the truth now. They should hate me_ , he thinks in return. His soul feeds off of yours, using your determination to feel love again. Love, and hope, and fear, and self consciousness.

_But they don’t._  


_But they should._  
  
  
_But they won’t._  
  
  
_I don’t want to do this._  


_We'll wait._  
  
  
Silence. Silence. Still silence, and more silence.

 **  
** And then, just above the faint rustling of leaves in the wind, a small, hollow, wretched voice (from your lips, but wholeheartedly not you): “Hello. My name is Asriel. I've been...asleep. For a very long time. But I'm back now. And for as long as Frisk is here, I think I'll be here too."

**Author's Note:**

> [Disclaimer: This fanwork may or may not contain spoilers and is subject to editing and improvement. Friendly feedback is appreciated.]


End file.
